In today’s globalised world, where markets are increasingly borderless, how does the domestic regulator enforce national objectives in consumer protection, professional standards, taxes and competition? Let’s be honest, it’s not easy to enforce these objectives within the border, imagine across borders, where the language and legal systems are different and, most importantly, there is no own state power of the jurisdiction setting up requirements. Cross-border product enforcement has matured in recent years in line with consumer demand for quality and stricter enforcement through customs and sometimes even postal services. Requirements for cross-border services, however, have been more difficult to enforce due to the variety of channels that services consumers and businesses currently use, particularly digital services. This howtoregulate article focuses on how the regulation of cross-border services could be better enforced so that compliance with service requirements by traders outside of the jurisdiction are similar, or at least not too dissimilar, to those within the regulator’s jurisdiction.Continue reading Regulating Cross Border Services→

According to The Lancet “alcohol use is a leading risk factor for global disease burden and causes substantial health loss”1. In fact, it is the seventh leading risk factor globally for mortality and disease finding that “the risk of all-cause mortality, and of cancers specifically, rises with increasing levels of consumption, and the level of consumption that minimises health loss is zero”2. These results suggest that alcohol control policies and regulations that have traditionally focused on “responsible” or “safe” alcohol consumption might need to be revised worldwide, refocusing on efforts to lower overall population-level consumption. Some states (eg. Australia) are currently reviewing their alcohol control regime and with The Lancet’s recent publication more jurisdictions are expected to follow. This howtoregulate article examines the international and national alcohol control regulations to determine good regulatory techniques that could assist states’ reviews of existing regulation.Continue reading Regulating alcohol consumption in the absence of a medically determined safe level→

To ensure the good application of law, authorities must have empowerments. However, we have not yet found any systematic presentation of types of empowerments. We aim at closing this gap by this article. We will see that the focus on empowerment permits a new, complementary view on what regulation should contain. This complementary view can be used to double-check whether draft regulation is complete. Continue reading Empowerments (Part I): typology→

This Part II of the howtoregulate Report on Artificial Intelligence presents regulatory approaches for minimising the harms of artificial intelligence (AI), evidently without putting into question the utility of AI. What should regulation of AI look like? The answer to this question depends on the goals of the regulator. As was previously outlined in Part I, much of the goals of states today is to focus on incentivising innovative applications of AI or encouraging break through AI research. We could imagine, however, that the average regulator might also consider such goals as avoiding the risk that AI research or technology leads to the eradication of humankind and reducing other major risks for human beings to the extent that the expected positive effect of AI is not disproportionately hampered. Furthermore, regulators might feel compelled to deal with particular risks linked to specific technological uses.Continue reading Report on Artificial Intelligence: Part II – outline of future regulation of AI→

Artificial intelligence (AI) has been placed front and centre in many countriesʼ economic strategies1, probably unsurprising as AI is one of the defining technologies of the Fourth Industrial Revolution2. Nascent AI regulation around the world today is characterised by soft approaches either aimed at incentivising innovation in the manufacturing or digital sectors or encouraging break through research. The ethical implications of AI are either regulated through specific AI codes in companies concerned with good corporate social responsibility, in research institutes (private or public) concerned with ethical research and innovation or not regulated at all. These AI ethical codes are not formally scrutinised by any public administration, nor are they legislatively required, and so it is difficult to assess the quality and effectiveness of such codes in minimising the negative implications of AI. The purpose of this howtoregulate report is to examine existing AI regulatory landscape (Part I) and present regulatory approaches for minimising the harms of AI (Part II – outline for future regulation of AI), evidently without putting into question the utility of AI.Continue reading Report on Artificial Intelligence: Part I – the existing regulatory landscape→

Tobacco remains the leading preventable cause of death in the world today and accounts for around 12% of all adult deaths worldwide (more than 7 million people)1. Its effects are far-reaching and has implications along the supply chain: from the land used to grow tobacco instead of food, often in countries where food security is a concern, to the 63% of children of tobacco-growing families involved in child labour, to the environmental effects of smoke expelled into the air, the bystander and the smoker´s health2. This howtoregulate article focuses on tobacco control regulation and regulation for the emerging tobacco alternative electronic cigarettes.Continue reading Tobacco control regulations: Combating the world´s leading preventable cause of death→

The following prototype regulation shows that it is possible to cover all kinds of research and technology risks in one piece of regulation, making the currently practiced piece-meal approach superfluous. Compared with the practice of developing particular pieces of regulation e.g. for biotechnology, nuclear science, geo-engineering and always running behind the new technologies popping-up, this regulatory approach permits an easy handling and a faster and more complete coverage of research and technology risks.Continue reading Research and Technology Risks: Part IV – A Prototype Regulation→

Posts navigation

Redefining Intelligent Regulation

The Regulatory Institute is a not-for-profit organisation, assisting the improvement of regulation in different jurisdictions. The Regulatory Institute collects methodological knowledge through comprehensive research of regulatory techniques used in different sectors and by different jurisdictions all over the world.

Still in its start-up phase, the Regulatory Institute currently provides only one service to parliaments and administrations: commenting on draft regulation in order to identify possibilities for improvement. The Regulatory Institute has so far given input to regulators in Europe, Africa, Asia, Australia and North America. With its second place of operation, Lisbon, its activities will be extended to South and Central America in 2018. Starting from 2018, the Regulatory Institute will also provide training on how to regulate. If you are interested in these services please see the Contact Us page.

Our Articles

Articles by Month

Meta

This website uses cookies to allow us to see how the site is used. The cookies do not identify you. However, it is important to understand how cookies work and that you have control over this, see our Privacy Policy.If you continue to use this site, we assume that you are okay with the cookies used on this site, but you can opt-out if you wish.AcceptRejectRead More